Smyles Comm-biner Stereo Audio Interface

The Smyles Comm-biner, a stereo audio interface, combines production audio and walkie-talkie audio, so you can monitor both through your headphones. It suits reality and documentary production and any other job where you monitor walkies alongside production audio.

With no surveillance tube blocking one ear and compromising the sound of your headphones, both ears stay open and you hear normally, in stereo. If you use in-ear monitors, you no longer have to fit a surveillance tube and a monitor into the same ear. It takes any input source, from a professional mixer, recorder, or camera to an IFB receiver or iPad, and it feeds your own headphones, IEMs, or earbuds.

Monitoring on headphones leaves no tube to clog up. A detachable transducer and surveillance tube are included for the times you would rather not wear headphones, such as at lunch. The signal chain is passive, so it needs no power.

Connection Paths

A mini-to-mini cable runs from your audio source to the PGM input, the walkie-talkie cable’s mini plug goes into the WT input, and your headphones plug into the PHONES output. The walkie volume control sets the level of the walkie audio against the program audio.

The L and R DIP switches send the walkie feed to the left, right, or both channels, and the ST-M DIP switch sets the monitoring mode. A ballpoint pen or small screwdriver blade moves them. STEREO is normal operation, with stereo production audio and the walkie feed where the L and R switches send it. MONO mixes the stereo input to mono and feeds it with the walkie to the left channel only, for a camera operator wearing a single mono earpiece. MONO also lifts the ring of the headphone jack, so a mini mono plug does not short out the right channel feed.

Good to Know

Keep mono mini plugs out of a camera’s headphone jack: a mono plug there grounds the right channel output and can damage it.

Features

• Combines production audio and walkie-talkie audio for monitoring on headphones
• Keeps both ears open, with no surveillance tube blocking one of them
• Takes any input source, from a mixer or recorder to a camera or IFB receiver
• Works with your own headphones, IEMs, or earbuds
• DIP switches send the walkie feed to the left, right, or both channels
• Stereo mode for normal monitoring, mono mode for a single earpiece
• Passive signal chain that needs no power
• Detachable transducer and surveillance tube included